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ORATION ^ '^ 



DELIVERED 



y 



By RICHARD T. MERRICK, Esq 



THE CELEBRATION OF THE ANNIVERSARY 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 



BY THE CITY AUTHORITIES AND PEOPLE OF BALTIMORE, 



JULY 5th, 1852. 




BALTIMORE: 
PRINTED BY SANDS & MILLS, 

128 Baltimore street. 

1852. 



A^ 



ETasG 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE CITY COUNCIL. 



The following Preamble and Resolutions were offered by Col. James C. 
NiNDE of the Second Branch, and adopted, and Committees were ap- 
pointed to carry out the objects of the resolutions: 

Whereas, the 4th day of July, 1776, marks an era long to be remem- 
bered in the history of the world, as the birth-day of American Indepen- 
dence, — therefore 

Resolved, That we hail the return of the 4th day of July, with feelings 
of devout gratitude to Almighty God for the manifold blessings which he 
has vouchsafed to bestow upon our beloved country. 

Resolved, That the recurrence of this anniversary should recall, with 
redoubled force, to the mind of every American, the recollection of the 
wisdom, patriotism and virtue of those great men who conducted our 
country through a long and bloody struggle, and eventually established a 
government of law and order upon the basis of Liberty and Union. 

Resolved, That we regard this anniversary as a day, when Americans, 
forgetting all diversities of party, sect and creed, may meet as brothers 
upon common ground and around a common altar rejoice in the prosperity 
and welfare of their common country. 

Resolved, That whereas the approaching 4th day of July falls on Sun- 
day, the citizens of Baltimore be and they are hereby invited to unite in a 
general celebration of the anniversary on the day following, to wit, Mon- 
day, July 5th. 

Resolved, That a joint committee of arrangements, consisting of three 
members from each Branch of the' Council, be appointed, and that his 
Honor the Mayor, be requested to act as chairman of said committee. 

Resolved, That the sum of two thousand dollars, or so much thereof as 
may be necessary, be and the same is hereby appropriated out of any money 
in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, to carry into effect the fore- 
going resolutions. 



Committee on part 2d Branch. 
HUGH BOLTON, 
JAMES C. NINDE, 
J. I. COHEN, 
GEORGE A. LOVERING. 



Committee on part 1st Branch, 
JOHN S. BROWN, 
M. W. MEARIS, 
CHARLES G. GRIFFITH, 
WILLIAM H. SHELLY. 



The above Committees, appointed by the two Branches of the City Coun- 
cil made a public call for a Convention of the Civic and Military associa- 
tions of the City, to meet and perfect arrangements for the contemplated 
Independence Celebration, which convention, through its chairman, select- 
ed the following gentlemen on the part of the citizens, to act in conjunction 
with the Committee of the Councils, the whole constituting a Committee of 
Jlrrangements :— Major Joseph K. Stapleton, Capt. S. S. Leidy, Major 
Samuel S. Mills, Dr. Henry S. Hu.st, and L. R. Woollen. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



CELEBRATION GROUND, ^ 

Baltimore, July 5lh, 1852. ) 

Richard T. Merrick, Esq. 
Sir ;— 
At a meeting of the Committee of Arrangements, iield on the Celebra- 
tion Ground, at the close of the exercises, a unanimous resolution was 
passed, expressive of their high regard of the Oration delivered by you 
upon the occasion, and with the desire that you furnish the Committee with 
a copy for publication. 

Respectfully, yours, 

J. H. T. JEROME, Chairman, 

HUGH BOLTON, 

JAMES C. NINDE, 

J. I. COHEN, 

GEORGE A. LOVERING, 

JOHN S. BROWN, 

CHARLES G. GRIFFITH, 

M. W. MEARIS, 

WILLIAM H. SHELLY, 

JOSEPH K. STAPLETON, 

S. S. LEIDY, 

Dr. HENRY S. HUNT, 

L. R. WOOLLEN. 

SAMUEL S. MILLS, Secretary. 



BALTIMORE, July 6th, 1852. 

Gentlemen : 

Your favor of July 5th has been received, and I herewith comply with 
your very complimentary request. 

Respectfully, your ob't serv't, 

RICHARD T. MERRICK. 
To Messrs. J. H. T. Jerome, Hugh Bolton, James C. Ninde, &c. 



ORATION. 



Let us rejoice, my fellow-countrymen, at the enhanced 
glory of this auspicious day ; let us congratulate ourselves 
that its recurrence annually beholds a larger measure of na- 
tional prosperity and national wealth and national greatness ; 
that its coming is annually greeted by an increased number 
of freemen, offering the emotions of grateful hearts to the 
heroes of our country for what we are, and the prayers of 
christian spirits to Him who rules the destiny of nations, in- 
voking a continuance of his mercies and his blessings, that 
under his providence we may realize the hopes of the Fa- 
thers of the republic, in becoming what they wished us 
to be. 

What a spectacle is to-day presented to the world! A 
mighty people prostrate in adoration and exulting in joy — a 
whole nation laying aside the duties and occupations of 
the present, to do homage to the past, and rekindle its na- 
tional affections; labor ceasing for a common jubilee, and 
animosities forgotten in a common brotherhood. Happy, 
happy country, whose Sabbath brings her children around 
the paternal altar, there to submit their spirits to the inspira- 
tion of patriotic ardor, and there to feel that the same glo- 
ries, the same memories and the same sacrifices — the same 
interests, the same prospects and the same hopes, and an im- 



8 

pulse of grateful love in every heart to the father of their 
roinnion country, unites theiu in the harmonious fratemit)'^ 
of one great family. 

To-day the people throughout this land are gathering to 
bid it welcome with festive joy and music and songs of grate- 
ful praise — it is the anniversary of their freedom — of the 
pronndgation to the world of a mighty principle, of whose 
blessings they are the inheritors, and of whose purity they 
are the custodiaries. Time had prepared the way for its 
<oraing, and strengthened its power by developing its justice. 
Those who were to become its antagonists had given an 
impulse to its progress. England had washed out divine 
right in the blood of Charles, and pronounced against legiti- 
macy, when ameliorating the expulsion of James by de- 
claring it an abdication, she offered the vacant throne to the 
Prince of Orange. She had vindicated popular right and 
constitutional sovereignty in the donation of her crown and 
the guarantees she demanded from her king. She had in- 
voked the ol)ligations of Magna Charta to protect her people 
from encroachments, and re-enacted its provisions to restrain 
the usurpations of prerogative. She had manifested the pow- 
er in the people as a power in the nation, claiming the pro- 
tecting principles of her Constitution as sacred from the 
ruthless depredation of the Loj'd^s anointed. She had 
stricken a blow at irresponsible sovereignty, which was to 
resound through ages, until its echoes should be caught up 
among the mountains of America and thundered back 
against her. 

A mighty truth had struggled forth in the necessities of 
the times, and though dimly seen, no power could stay its 
full development, or measure the immensity of its destined 
influence on the world. 

The peace of Utrecht adjusted the balance of power and 
gave quiet to weary and bleeding humanity. Monarchs were 
secure on their thrones in reciprocal guarantees, and the pro- 
tection of wasted, though mighty armies; a series of wars 
were at an end, and Europe was about to repose in peace. 



But the peace of Utrecht, although apparently removing all 
causes of war, left many connnected with America and her 
commerce, destined to convulse the world with resistless en- 
ergy, and advance the freedom of the Colonies in the san- 
guinary contests of succeeding years. 

Tiie Assiento, by whose stipulations Anne of England 
and Philip of Spain divided the profits of an African traffic, 
and guaranteed the increase and continuance of slave trade 
to the Colonies, contained the assurance of legislative re- 
monstrance in its wanton outrage upon the rights of hu- 
manity, made tasteful then to Britain's tender conscience 
by the emoluments it secured to her queen. 

The rapacity which sought the aggrandizement of England 
in commercial monopoly and territorial possession, the pride 
that stimulated to national supremacy, and the power that 
wrested the Canadas from France and the Floridas from 
Spain, and gave to the Court of St. James undisputed pre- 
dominance in the western hemisphere, all tended to the 
consummation of the grand result of American freedom. 

This result was ultimate and not seen; but when it broke 
upon Christendom, the historian traced it back, and saw in 
the swelling tide of events the gathering power with which 
the political ocean heaved. 

Progressive development is a universal law. Nations and 
institutions and thrones sink into the past, but the great 
movement of humanity is still onward. The experience and 
reflections of one generation, enlarge the wisdom of each 
that follows, and great truths once felt, pass down from mind 
to mind, gathering energy and power, and widening their in- 
fluence and extending their dominion. 

Upon this continent the great principle of human rights was 
maturing. Here, no memorials of an ancient idolatry op- 
pressed the mind of the pioneer who had fled to nature's wild 
dominion from civil wrong and religious fanaticism; here 
the political dogmas of divine right could appeal to no hal- 
lowed monuments or honored observances; here, no royal 
2 



10 

retinue manifested the ])hysical power which sustained the 
niond principle of royal holiness; but all that met the eye 
or sounded on the ear, was nature's, in her majesty and 
freedom ; the roar of mighty waters in the wilderness — 
the solitude of the vast illimitable forest — and the sublimity 
of the mountain, in the grandeur of its towering sununit — 
all, all, spoke not of man and creeds, but of God and truth, 
and the human mind, expanding in the contemplation of na- 
ture, thought eternal principles amid her monuments. 

They were to go forth to shape the history of the world, 
and, raising society to a participation in its government, 
bless the futurity of mankind in the establishment of per- 
sonal freedom. Mightier than a veneration for antiquity, insti- 
tutions hallowed by time were to bend to their power, and, 
full of living trutli, the false economy of ages was to fly be- 
fore them as the night before the coming dawn. "The 
enormous faith of many made far one," was to be arraigned 
by philosophy, defied by arms, and driven before that juster 
creed which rests upon individual equality, and holds ''life, 
liberty and the pursuit' of happiness inalienable rights" in 
all; enterprise was to traverse forbidden seas, under the pro- 
tection of commercial freedom, and thought, speaking aloud, 
without fear, Avas to elevate the social organization of the 
world. 

Many and enormous difficulties hung about the develop- 
ment of this great era of himianity; but the sword of the 
planter gleamed as a meteor in the battle, and the thought 
of the artizan lit up the pathway of statesmen. 

A government springing from the people, resting the au- 
thority of its rule upon their inherent right, and drawing the 
vigor of its sovereignty from their will, rose up beside the 
proudest empires and kingdoms, a new and mighty ''power 
on the earth." 

The principle of its existence was at war with thrones and 
diadems, and Legitimacy, though trembling in anticipation 
of danger in the future, bowed acknowledgement for secu- 
rity in the present. 



11 

The contest thenceforward for ages was to be between the 
right of society to limit prerogative for self- protection, and 
the illimitable nature of prerogative because of divine origin; 
between the inalienable right of the people to govern them- 
selves and the divine right of Legitimacy to irresponsible 
sovereignty. 

The principles which had been struggling forth for many 
years, which had enlarged the soul of Hampden, and been 
sanctified in the martyrdom of Sydney, were now in full 
development. 

A new spirit had entered the political world, and became 
incarnate in the American Constitution. 

Those who had made her a nation lived to see her ripen- 
ing glory and power, and passed away, leaving to their 
children the sacred injunction to keep faith with the ashes 
of their Fathers. Their luminous wisdom had prescribed 
for coming generations the duties of citizens, and their coun- 
sel provided for future emergencies which then, to have 
seen, was almost the vision of prophecy. 

Through more than half a century, in every national dan- 
ger and political peril, their voices have sounded upon us 
from the past in wisdom and warning and love. Immortal 
heroes ! how shall we be grateful for the blessings we 
enjoy? I can almost hear from the tomb, the solemn an- 
swer — keep faith with the dead — preserve the government 
transmitted to you for the future of your race and the future 
of humanity. As the music of the heavenly bodies in the 
harmonious circuit of their orbits, is an eternal hymn of praise 
to God, the music of harmony in this galaxy of Republics, 
is an anthem of glory and honor to those who formed the 
law of their being, and gave them the splendor and power of 
a united system. 

It is your high responsibility and duty to preserve, by 
patriotic devotion, their harmony and peace, and to continue 
the dispensation of their blessings. The government you 
enjoy is in trust for others, and moral principle impels you to 



n 

preserve its integrity imd guard its purity. The sacrifices of 
the Revohition, the toils of its Council Chambers, the suf- 
fering of its campsj and the blood of its battle fields, were 
not for one generation, but for all; and each holds the sacred 
legacy in trust for that which is to follow. There is involved 
in the obligation of each to the past, a duty to the future, 
upon Avhich rests the hopes of coming time, and the preser- 
vation of individual freedom in the economy of nations. 

If America falls from her high position as the representa- 
tive of popular sovereignty and free government, where shall 
its principles find repose and humanity look for hope ? If 
fanaticism perverts to the infamy of its mad designs the con- 
stitution of your country, or a selfish abandonment of the 
duties of nationality to individual aggrandizement, allows it 
to sicken, and languish, and die, where is the resting place 
to which its spirit can flee? There is none, none ! Over its 
ruin the oppressed may weep in vain, whilst legitimacy finds 
in its ashes the charter of irresponsible prerogative, and de- 
fends its justice by the experience of its necessity. 

This can never be from foreign assault — she can bear her 
eagles in triumph against the world in arms. Her danger is 
with her people — they alone can preserve what their fathers 
have made, and they alone are able to destroy. 

In Rome, when Rome was free, her classic people felt the 
glow of individual pride in the common glory, and aban- 
doned private enterprise to watch by the sacred fire of her 
altars. With a domain extending from the columns of Her- 
cules to the banks of the Euphrates, nothing could have 
broken her freedom but the degeneracy of her children, who, 
ceasing to be national in their devotion, disgraced their citi- 
zenship in luxurious indifference, and walked her streets con- 
tented in their infamy, whilst the Praetorian guards by the 
terms of the auction, awarded the crown to the bid of Juli- 
anus. With such a domain as America, prouder than Rome 
ever was, the spirit of liberty is secilre in an eternal home, if 
the quiet happiness with which it blesses the life of the citi- 



13 

zen, does not produce oblivion of duty. So smoothly flows 
on the current of civil power, and so easy is the burthen of 
government, that the people may readily forget its existence 
in the enjoyment of its security, and each feeling that he is 
but a useless part of twenty million, leaves to the other that 
which, under the same influence, he leaves to another, until 
the whole people slumber in indifferenee, to be aroused by 
the jarring elements of civil power, and wake to hear the 
crash of ruin, and curse the folly that has wrought it. 

This is your danger, and it is not small. 

Open treason which strikes boldly the sacrilegious blow, 
can not accomplish more surely its desperate purpose than 
that quiet treason which loses the citizen in the selfishness of 
the man, and forgets the national good in the idolatry of in- 
dividual gain. 

We may congratulate ourselves that this evil is not yet felt. 

Under the vigilant patriotism of her citizens, our country 
has progressed in prosperity and power — extending her do- 
minion and deepening the foundations of her institutions and 
illustrating the glory of her people in prostrating the incen- 
diary designs of treasonable fanatics. She has come forth 
from the most perilous period of her existence invigorated 
and chastened. She has felt the fury of the storm, and its 
fearful convulsion has shaken into union what it would have 
disjoined. She has tried the spirit of her people, and its 
faith has confirmed confidence in her principles. She has 
calmed the madness of sectional animosity by the harmony 
of compromise, and stands to-day stronger, and firmer, and 
mightier, than she has ever stood before. Her two great par- 
ties have come up in patriotic devotion, and rebuking the 
agitation of dangerous questions, driven fanaticism from their 
ranks and made the sacred principle of faith to the Union 
their common creed. They have broken the political machi- 
nations of bad men before the sanctity of her constitution, 
assured an active sovereignty to her law, and manifested the 



14 

controlling power of a public spirit in her people^ upon wliicli 
her future can repose in hope; williout fear. 

" What constitutes a State ? 

Not high raised battlements or iahored momid, 
Thick wall or moated gate; 

Nor cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; 
Not bays and broad armed ports, 

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; 
Not starred and spangled courts, 

Wliere low bound baseness wafts perfume to pride. 
No; — men, high-minded men. 

Men who their duties know. 

But know their rights, and, knowing dare maintain, 
Prevent the long-aimed blow. 

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain; 
These constitute a State, 

And sovereign law, that State's collected will 
O'er thrones and globes elate 

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill;" — 

So long as the fountains of her ^^ sovereign law" are spring- 
ing in unpolluted vigor, the destiny of America is beyond 
measure in glory and usefulness. Spreading her principles 
by the lieauty of their economy at home, she is the inspira- 
tion and hope of those who suffer under the systems of a false 
political philosophy. Liberal and enlightened opinion finds 
power in her growth, and her majesty, giving it the energy 
of manifest truth, stinudates the vigor of its progress. Her 
position in the world, the elements and nature of her original 
organization, and her history as a free government, founded 
upon individual liberty, wresting from royalty the acknow- 
ledgment of her independence, and taking her place in the 
counsel of nations, holding the rights of her people to be of 
divine origin in the very temples of legitiniclcy, and therefore 
holding them to be rights common to humanity, make her 
the champion and advocate of enlightened opinion every- 
where. Not in arms by an active co-operation in the agita- 
tions of the world, but by the force of that resistless moral 



IT) 

power which raises armies and revokidonizes empires. Stand- 
ing here between the two great oceans, happy, mighty and 
free, she is, in her very beins;, the demonstrated right of 
man's charter to freedom. 

The sympathy of her people for humanity abroad, can 
best manifest its sincerity and most efficiently accomplish 
the consummation of its benevolence, by stimulating the citi- 
zen to a faithful discharge of his sacred duties at home. 
Every additional measure of prosperity here, is felt through- 
out Europe in the additional strength it gives to enlightened 
opinion in its struggle. Every new star that gleams from 
our banner sheds new light upon the decaying system of Eu- 
ropean government, and announcing the existence of another 
republic in the hemisphere of freedom, revives the drooping 
energy of those who wish for liberty. It is by manifesting in 
national development and additional national greatness and 
social happiness, the justice, virtue and efficiency of the prin- 
ciples of the national organization^ that we are to intervene 
in the cause of humanity. 

Scarcely had our country struggled into being, when the 
heart of Europe caught the inspiration of freedom from the 
beauty and wisdom of her economy, and absolutism was ar- 
raigned by the people and the continent convulsed with civil 
wars. Out of those wars arose the consolidation of despot- 
ism for the preservation of its power, and the league of the 
divine right of kings against the inalienable right of the peo- 
ple, assumed the formidable and iniquitous shape of the Holy 
Alliance. It has been true in the vindication of its faith, 
in the sanguinary assaults it has made upon freedom through 
a series of forty years; but all the blood of Europe cannot 
wash out the eternal principle that has fastened upon the 
hearts of men. The child will catch it from the last breath 
of the father, and seizing the paternal sword as it falls from 
the hand of the dead^ go forth to vindicate the faith of his 
martyrdom. The progress of freedom is onward, and every 
attempt to arrest it, makes plainer the oppressive tyranny of 
despotism, and showing the physical power which sustains 



10 

its dominion, is convincing the world against the supersti- 
tions of the past, that the divine right of the monarch is the 
willing sword of the people. 

The Holy Alliance is triumphant for a time, but not se- 
cure; the quiet of Europe now, is but the presage of the 
coming storm, and the revel of despotism the harbinger of 
the popular verdict. 

I do not agree with either theory which has obtained in the 
past year as to the policy of this country in connection with 
the affairs of Europe. 

It is a principle whose justice is settled by the enlighten- 
ment of the present age, and demonstrated in the American 
existence, that every people has the right to make and un- 
make its own government, and as a necessaiy consequence, 
that no nation can, without an infraction of this ''inalienable 
right," interfere in the exercise of the popular judgment. 
But is it necessar}^, because we recognize a principle, that we 
should become the armed defender of its abstract right? 

This woidd be to make America the conservator of inter- 
national law, and requiring her to examine all causes of dis- 
pute whenever and wherever they arise, " and however 
remote and essentially foreign to our concerns," lo cast the 
weight of her power against the violation of her theory of the 
polity of nations, involve her people in endless wars, and 
peril the future hope of the world in a chivalric crusade for 
the universal supremacy of an abstract principle. This 
would be the result of one view of her policy. 

I am equally indisposed to agree with that other view 
which holds that the fathers of our country have left us as 
the established national policy through all time, a scrupulous 
indifference to every kind of civil commotion beyond this 
continent, and solenmly enjoined upon us, under no circum- 
stances, to become entangled in them. If, in the course of 
events, the power of despotism, now concentrated upon the 
continent, should, moving forward with overwhelming might 
to crush all constitutional governments in Europe, make 



17 

manifest that it designed to assail the integrity of America, 
and sweep the principles of freedom from the earth, tlien he 
who searches in the counsel of our fathers for any injunction 
to stay the anticipating blow, or prevent an alliance with na- 
tions of kindred sympathy across the Atlantic, to secure the 
certainty of domestic tranquility against evident approaching 
danger, desecrates their legacy of wisdom. National policy 
must vary with the varying condition of the world necessarily 
incident to the progress of time, and we are bound to the 
adoption of that, which under existing emergencies, is the 
surest guarantee of our permanent existence — a policy not to 
be judged by the past, but the present — by what «,s, and is 
to be. 

The hallowed advice of the founders of the republic loses 
ill this none of the prophetic and enlarged wisdom which 
characterises it in every instance. The language of the 
farewell address contains the designation of the condition to 
which its injunctions were intended to apply, and in the 
limitation of their extent, appears to have even then antici- 
pated a possible emergency — still, thank God ! only possible 
and far remote. 

It says, in speaking of the primary interests of Europe, 
that " she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the 
causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. 
Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate our- 
selves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her 
politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her 
friendships or enmities." 

Reverencing this farewell address as a sacred legacy, in 
the guide of whose enlightend wisdom is the greatest security 
and happiness of this people, I am constrained to give its 
every word and sentence the fullest scope of meaning unless 
those of either side who contend that portions inconvenient to 
their theories are of no effect, show their charter to correct its 
diction. 

The -'causes" of the controversies, and the nature of the 
3 



18 

" coinbinations/' make it luaiiifest dial with us the ([uestion 
should be — of our position as afl'ectcd by Europe, and not the 
position of Europe as affected by us; of domestic security, 
and not of foreig-n sympathy. Our hopes and prayers are 
with the lover of freedom, wherever he may strike in her 
name — but until the nature and universality of his contest 
involves the peace of our homes and the permanency of our 
institutions in the present, or, as a proximate result in the 
future, the policy and duty of America to him and to her- 
self is " peace with all nations, and entangling alliances 
with none." 

Such an emergency, 1 believe, will never arise. 
The Holy Alliance having chrushed the liberal movements 
of '48, and checked for a time the progress of enlightened 
sentiment in Europe, is concentrating a power against it 
which will avenge the iniquities of its long dominion. 

It has awakened from the sleep of forty years the forgotten 
compacts of royal fraternity, and declaring the Bourbon the 
only rightful rider over France, warned her President that 
the divine inheritance of the Duke of Chambord entitles hira 
to the throne of his fathers. 

The storm is gathering in the north, and retributive justice 
is preparing to visit on the treason of Bonaparte, the ven- 
geance of murdered liberty in Rome. 

Germany had risen in might, and Monarchs were flying 
before the indignation of her oppressed people; Hungary was 
struggling with successful power on the Danube; Italy was 
in revolt from the foot of the Julian Alps to the Bay of Na- 
ples, and Rome felt again the blessing of freedom ; France 
hud driven Louis Philippe beyond her borders, and despot- 
ism, trembling in the fearful storm, begged the purchase of 
its throne at the cost of prerogative, when Louis Napoleon, 
whose political power was the representative of the Constitu- 
tional sovereignty of the people, deserted the standard of free- 
dom to secure with the army of a Republic the triumph of 
despotism . 



19 

From the summit of Monte Mario, he demanded the sur- 
render of Rome, and the hopes of Italy sank under the 
treason of France. 

Her President perverted the spirit of liherty to the protec- 
tion of tyranny, and the power he sustained in its peril is 
preparing to chrush him in its security. Its course will force 
France in her rightful position as the champion of European 
freedom, and any attempt to re-establish the Bourl)on, form a 
combination of the advocates of popular right, against the 
Holy Alliance, which protected from faithlessness by the ex- 
perience of the past, will secure the prevalence of enlightened 
opinion. 

No temporary triumph can destroy its vigor or stay its 
onward progress. Barriers may oppose it, but like an ever 
swelling tide, it sweeps them away in the accmnulation of 
power, and rushes onward with resistless force. 

England must join the contest. Her treasure and blood 
have been spent for many years in preserving the balance of 
Europe between opposing powers struggling for supremacy, 
and in the struggle for principles whose issue involves the 
glory and security of her government, she will l)e forced by 
the necessities of her position, and the nature of her institu- 
tions, and the feeling of her people, to draw the sword 
against the crusade of Cossackism. 

These contests, to which she has given, and still gives the 
great impulse, I believe, can never reach America. 

Science may have ''^annihilated distance " and made the 
ocean which divides, the bond of union between the conti- 
nents, but their proximity makes Europe more sensitive to 
the influence of America, and the continually increasing army 
of her principles there, is security for the sanctity of their 
tabernacle here. 

Their certain triiunph is in the future. The principle of 
human liberty belongs to ages of liberal enlightenment, and 
progress is the law of its being. Its history is the history of 
steady and continuing development, with the advance of 



'^0 

iiiiclliirence, ami no )t()\\ci li;is ever lt«'tMi able to (H)iu|iiPr, 
ami no cuiiihinalion io crnsli ii. Ii fell in \\\c re])iil)lics of 
old wiih the literalure and ])hil(.s()phy it adorned, only to 
revive with (he iiilcllioeiKe that re\ ivcd tiioir clacssic beaut} 
and wisdom, and bless the wilderness of .\meriea as the site 
of its altars, t'roni here it has i>"one forth in the world to 
animate thoiii^ht, and stinudale enterprise ami alleviate sul 
ferinii", and rejoicinjo- in the eie\a(ion of the human mind, it 
hears above its ancient homes ijie nmsic of those harps, 
which, though unstrung for many ye;us, once gave forth 
the melody of its anthem in tem])les of Ionia and of Rome, 
and now again respond to advanced intelligence in their sa- 
cred liymn of ancient days. 

Its influence is the power of justice, and its progress the 
resistless energy of truth. As the thoughts of men widen 
and knowledge in(;reases, the nations will gather to its domin- 
ion, whilst America, with a banner bright as the ensign of 
Azazel, leads them on in their course of liberal and enlight- 
ened opinion. 

This was the hope of the Fathers of the Republic, antl 
its realization is with the people. 

Continue in a vigilant guard over her institutions and 
welfare the spirit of those fathers, and in the glory of coming 
time, your children will bless you for that patriotic devotion 
which has preser\^ed, in the pmity of her Constitution, the 
freedom of America, for them, as you now and here bless 
those whose watchful and enduring love has made and pre- 
served it for you. 

They have passed away — but the great and good live be- 
yond the grave in the light of their genius and the glory of 
its achievements, and guide the generation that walks above 
their dust T/iei/ are not ch'tid 

"Scatter his ashes to the wind, 

Whose sword or voice has served mankind. 

And is lie dead, whose noble mind 
Lifts thine on high ? 

To live with those wo Ic-.ive behind 
js not to i/ie." 



^1 

The iiK'inoiy and practice of their virlues should be your 
political faith — recall the history of their lives and be like 
them. 

These thoughts which I liax^e been preseufiug" to you carry 
nie back to the day of their sufTeiing and hope, and to that 
trying hour when England had spurned their petitions, their 
addresses and remonstrances, and I caii fancy that I see 
them, the glorious patriots, Otis and Madison and Adams 
and Lee and Hamilton and Jefferson and their brethren, he- 
roes all, gathered for a solemn consultation over the in- 
terests of their beloved America, with mournful countenances 
that tell the heavy burthen at their hearts and the sad ex- 
tremity of their country's woes; and Henry is there full of 
impulsive ardour, and as he speaks the ever memorable 
words, ^^we must light," — the compressed lips, the lowering 
frown and steady look of each gives the answer of a firm and 
pained conviction, when in their midst rises a stately and ma- 
jestic form, and with a countenance serene and grave and 
calm, he raises in reverential invocation one hand towards 
Heaven, and with the other pointing to his sword, stands be- 
fore the conclave — whilst hope dispels their fears, and from 
murmured whisperings, they shout the name of Wash- 
ington. 

All these have long since filled the measure of their lives, 
and repose in the soil they have consecrated. Have none 
such succeeded them ? 

There is one, the music of whose infancy was the storm 
of the revolution, and who growing to stately manhood in 
the forests of Virginia, went forth to carry Westward the glo- 
ry of the '^Mother of States." In him, the spirit of our 
fathers lived again; and commencing the couise of his long 
and brilliant life before the close of their eventful day, and 
illustrating their virtues and patriotism and usefulness, he so 
connected in himself the two great periods of our history, 
and so perpetuated the heroism of the first, that we scarcely 
knew it had passed away wliile Cr.AY survived. 



Happy and proud has been his hfe wlio to Heaven's 
solemn calhiig' of the spirit to its home, can answer "satis 
dill vel natiiroi vivi vcl glorioi''' — whilst his countrymen 
everywhere invoking a respite from death, stretch forth their 
arms to the patriot sage, and continue Tully's breathing elo- 
quence, — satis si ila visfortasse natura; addo etiain, si placet 
gloria, at quod //lavimum est patrioi certe pariun.'''' 

Sleep, immortal statesmen! sleep with the fathers of our 
country — beloved by her people and blessed by mankind. 

Gathering inspiration from the sacred ashes of these bene- 
factors of our race, the citizen will feel in the magic of their 
names an impulsive stimulus to patriotic faith, and invigo- 
rating the power, he will impel the progress of the nation in 
the performance of the full measure of his duly. 

Go on, then, my country, in thy course ! belt the earlh with 
thy beams, and cheer humanity everywhere and forever; 
thy morning of life was dyed in blood, but like the purplings 
of the east it heralded a sim of splendor, whose light is the 
blessing of mankind, and whose path — the circuit of the 
world. 



/ly/M / '^. 




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